


A Night of Purest Winter Vintage

by Maidenjedi



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: Diana and Gilbert, seeking to cheer Anne up, suggest ice-skating.  And Anne suggests the moonlight.





	A Night of Purest Winter Vintage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rina (rinadoll)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/gifts).



> Inspiration for the title: “But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful "up back" - almost intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises.” – L.M. Montgomery, “The Blue Castle”
> 
> A little bit Anne/Diana/Gilbert if you want it that way, because, well, moonlight madness. Placed in as vague a time as I could manage - they aren't *too* grown-up, not yet.

“Oh, Diana, I just can’t stop thinking about the Reverend’s face!  I was sure I was past all my youthful mistakes and follies, and I was most definitely sure I would at least never make the same mistake twice!”

Diana struggled to keep a straight face. “Anne, it wasn’t that bad.  It wasn’t liniment –“

“No, no, don’t try and exonerate me, dearest Diana.  I was and am a forgetful cook at the best of times.  And this is hardly that.”  She waved her hand to indicate the room, empty except for the two of them.

The plan had been to serve tea to Diana, the visiting missionary pastor who was dutifully making the rounds among Avonlea’s pious, and Gilbert.  Diana and Gil were to be her pillars against disaster – but the latter had not shown, and it was best not to mention Anne’s disastrous cake again, even in thought. 

Marilla had gone to Charlottetown, to visit a specialist about her headaches.  There was more to do on the farm than Anne could keep up with alone, no matter her protests to Marilla.  There were her studies and the school, and the usual Avonlea travails, made all the worse for the changes that Diana knew Anne was quite opposed to.  And had the sun just shone once in the last week, they would all be better for it, Anne most of all. The cake - so beautiful on presentation, so disastrous on taste - was the last straw on poor Anne's frenzied conscience.

Anne fretted beautifully; Diana was quite jealous, watching her pout and wring her hands, two habits she would vehemently deny if Diana should tease.  It was a temporary snit, Diana knew.  Anne would laugh at herself on the morrow, perhaps sooner, if Diana could find a way to provoke such self-deprecation.

It was even worse, Diana knew, because Gilbert swore he would be there, and had failed to appear.  Diana knew the efforts Anne made in the kitchen were due more to him than even the handsome missionary.  There was a truth Diana could never, ever utter aloud.  The histrionics over a muddled dessert were nothing to the protests Anne would raise over the mere suggestion of her and Gilbert.  But the evidence of her distraction was also, just now, slop in the pigs’ bucket, tossed there in disgust after the primary guest had departed.

Anne moaned and Diana thought.  There had to be a better way to move Anne beyond her trials, even for a short time.

“Care to play cribbage with me?”

They neither of them played cribbage.  The answer was no.

Diana suggested a number of things, all rejected, knitting and reading aloud and charades. And then the knock at the back door came.  Anne rushed to it, slowing her feet as she realized her haste, and smoothed her hair down before answering in a tone best suited to the offended girl of eleven she had once been.

“Gilbert Blythe, if that’s you, you might as well turn around and go home.  Tea was _hours_ ago and we had quite the jolly time without you.”

Through the door, Gilbert replied, “Anne, I am so sorry.  Mother has another of those headaches, and after all Miss Cuthbert’s been through, she wouldn’t rest until I’d called for the doctor and…well, Anne, I am just that sorry.”

Anne’s iron countenance melted and she let him in.  The brisk night air that accompanied him caused a shiver to run up Diana’s spine, and it colored Anne’s cheeks.

Diana wished she could blush as prettily as Anne.

The three of them sat down to a cup of tea in the kitchen; the hour grew late, though none noticed as they talked and laughed over the day’s adventures.  Whatever it was that Anne had put in the cake – and heaven knew, but it had made the missionary pastor swear under his breath, Diana most certainly noticed – not long ago a subject that made Anne groan now made her laugh as she told the story.  She did the faces and the voices, all to perfection, to Diana’s slight chagrin (was her voice really so high pitched?). 

Anne’s look of satisfaction as she glanced between Diana and Gilbert couldn’t be missed by either.  And it was that contentment that both had longed to see in their dear Anne, in their own ways.  Since Matthew’s passing, and now with Marilla’s grief and the possibility that Green Gables would go for good this time, Anne’s famous spirit was dulled.  To most in Avonlea, who would brush off any dulling of sparkle as just what life did, Anne may only seem to have matured.  Diana knew better. 

Anne needed an adventure.

“I know just the thing!” Diana interjected in the middle of Gilbert laying out expectations for the coming school year.  “We need a skating party!”

Winter had been cold and wet; there wasn’t a thing not frozen over on all of P.E.I.  Marilla was detained in Charlottetown for that very reason.  But the last two days had been dry, and the pond was frozen solid.  A skating party was just the ticket!

“I can invite Jane Andrews and some of the others, what do you say, Anne?  Even Fred…I mean, the boys, they might come along.  It could be such fun!”

Diana did indeed blush as prettily as Anne.

Gilbert nodded his enthusiasm for the scheme.  “A skating party could be brilliant.  What do you say, Anne?”

Anne, standing at the window just then, a dreamy look on her face, turned to her friends and grinned.

“Why wait?  The clouds have finally cleared and the moon is out tonight – shall we go now, see if we can catch it?”

There was no refusing when Anne Shirley had that particular look on her face.

-

Skates were fetched, and the young night welcomed Anne, Diana, and Gilbert with fresh, cold air that took their breath away as they met at the determined rendezvous point.  Gilbert was first there, and Anne came upon him alone.  His illuminated face looked as young as she’d ever seen him – and older, at the same time, inviting.  She couldn’t determine where that word came from _, inviting_.  But it was, and she could conjure no other.

Diana shouted a laugh out as she came up, tripping a little in her excitement.  Anne turned and watched as Diana approached, a moon goddess in her white muff and hat, black hair shining.  Anne was envious, sinful though it was, that Diana could look the part of her namesake so effortlessly.

There were similar thoughts in her friend’s head, and they looked at each other as though they might break a spell to blink.

Gilbert beckoned from the ice, and Anne challenged Diana to a race to join him.  Diana, though this was her idea, was not much of an athlete on the ice, so she was slower.  Anne won the race and her reward was to be spun around, her laughter bouncing off the trees.

The three raced, they danced, they wore themselves out on the ice.  They sat on the exposed rocks that served as a shore, and Anne challenged them to make snow angels.  They lay in the snow and laughed, the night spinning out in a glorious shower of stars above them.  Inspired, Anne spun a tale for them to skate to, not content with chasing moonlight – no, Anne was in a faerie land, not being too far from the gate even in her most serious and sober moments.  The field of snow was left by an ice queen, the frosted trees enchanted; Anne was witness to a kingdom of sparring snow soldiers. Of course, her fancy, taken that far, was tested by the casually thrown snowball that hit her arm. 

She may have taken offence at this attempt to bring her back down to earth, had she not better aim than Gilbert and the benefit of a staunch and sneaky ally in Diana, who snuck up behind the enemy and stole his hat before rubbing snow in his hair.

So the evening went.  Diana and Gilbert, blessed with enough of Anne’s infectious imagination to bend playfully to her whims, poured back into Anne’s spirit. She would awake the next day sore in places – she would fall on her knee right when trying an ill-advised leap – but she would be restored.  An Anne who didn’t fret but persisted.

They agreed to a night cap at Green Gables; the hour was deceptive in winter, and it was not quite supper time in most homes.  Anne made them cocoa and set out bread, butter, and plum preserves.

Diana excused herself on arrival, disheveled and in need of a mirror, a comb, and perhaps a basin of water.  She was still Diana, thought Anne, relieved that Diana would be so mundane in her needs after the revelry on the ice.  It was reassuring.

Less so was the way Gilbert looked when Anne brushed snow from his hair, and her hand, why, _why_ did her hand act so out of line with her determination and trail a little down the side of his face?  They both sighed inwardly, neither truly aware the other even reacted, Gilbert from longing and Anne from nothing she would admit to.

It might have stopped, but Gilbert took her hand and held it, and her gaze, for a moment longer.

Diana came back in, and the moment was over, whatever it was.  Anne snuck a guilty look at Diana, whose face moved between amusement and astonishment, and back to amusement because truly, did anyone who had known Anne at eleven and Gil at thirteen ever foresee a clandestine _hand-holding_?  Not Diana Barry, that was certain!

The magic of the night they’d had didn’t want to let them go.  It weaved between them, whispering _stay._ Never had there been a more enticing fire, more comfortable friends.  Anne found them blankets as they moved into the main room to sit before that good fire – just to keep their legs warm, mind.  But the cocoa, really warm milk with a sprinkling of chocolate and sugar, made them all drowsy, and soon they were staying much longer than any had planned.  The clock struck the hour, and they lost count of the chimes.

They talked about winters past, Diana and Gilbert regaling Anne with stories of their smallest years and the snow drifts and winter parties.  Anne’s only story was that of the dress Matthew had gotten her, than long-ago first Christmas at Green Gables, but she told it again and her eyes glistened.  Bold Gilbert reached for her hand, and shy Diana, the other. 

It wasn’t long before Diana fell asleep, and Gilbert was yawning as he whispered to Anne about his plans, his grandiose plans for the future.  He hardly knew what he told her, so intoxicated was he by all that had come before, by the touch of her hand yet in his. 

“I’m going to be a doctor, and when I’m done with training, Anne…Anne Shirley….”

She had nodded off, too.  Diana’s head was on Anne’s shoulder, and Anne’s head bobbed a little.  Gilbert, smiling, laid his head on her other shoulder, and Anne shifted and sighed before laying hers against his.

Outside, clouds had returned, and snow fell.  The fire crackled low, and the night wore on.

-


End file.
